"In order to understand Carlyle and his contemporaries, we must understand why theirdiscourse seemed to allow only two alternatives: the anarchy of a value-free society, on the one hand, or the social order and justice of an authoritarian state, on the other."

"Carlyle's Calvinistic upbringing, though he eventually rebelled against it, may account for the pessimism (and the occasional despondency) which characterized both his personal life and much of his literary output. Parts of Sartor Resartus recall to mind the terrifying sermons -- one thinks, for example, of Jonathan Edwards's famous "Sinners in theHands of an Angry God" -- which had been produced by the great Calvinist preachers of a much earlier generation. Carlyle was very well-read, with an affinity for languages (by the end of his life he knew French, Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Spanish, and Danish) and his dense and difficult prose is extremely allusive. "

"Yet colorful as such metaphors are, they tell us very little of the reality of textual dissemination and the construction of fame in nineteenth century America. As contagious as ideas may seem, they are not, in reality, irresistible, nor do they affect populations indiscriminately. Our reliance on disease tropes, I believe, has greatly obscured our understandingof the ways in which reputations are socially constructed and canons formed.vi In the paper that follows, I shall explore the social construction of Thomas Carlyle's reputation in New England between approximately 1834 and 1836, during which period he came to be seen as almost irresistibly, and quite perniciously, contagious."

"These pages are the beginnings of an attempt to reassess Carlyle's health and personality. It is very much work in progress, will grow in the months to come, and should be completed by the end of 1998. By then it should be an extensive hypertext, designed to prove readable for readers requiring varying degrees of detail, and to provide background documentation for those interested, together with integral links to other net sites."